Training for Fishermen as Temple Preists in AP

Along
fishermen’s villages of coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, fishermen’s
welfare committee has been working for their betterment for the last few years.
This committee has been organizing single teacher schools, Medical centers and Sanskar
kendras in the villages and during Guruji’s centenary celebrations recently it
conducted Matsya Narayanaswamy Rath Yatra. There was tremendous response to
this Yatra by  the villagers. They
developed devotion and keen interest in maintaining temples in their villages.

Tirumala
Tirupathi Devasthanam has taken into consideration that the first Avatar of Sri
Mahavishnu was Matsya and hence decided to train selected fishermen as temple
priests. T.T.D after consultations with experts in Agama Sastra and Chief
Priests of famous temples of Vijayawada,
Annavaram and Simhachalam evolved syllabus for training of fishermen as temple
priests. As part of this, it began an experiment for the first time from Uppada
village, Kottapalli Mandal, East Godavari District of A.P.

After
request by the fishermen welfare committee ably supported by Dharma Prachar
Samithi secretary Shri Raghavacharyulu and consideration by T.T.D Executive
Officer Shri K.V.Ramanachary (I.A.S), training classes were conducted for 40
fishermen from 24^th March to Ist April 2008 at Tirupathi. In the
inagural speech Shri Karunakar Reddy TTD Chairman stressed the need for
protecting Hindu Dharma and Culture.

A laudable
step has been taken by TTD in the right direction which goes a long way to
infuse confidence amongst neglected sections of the society  and  to
eliminate caste discrimination and to bring social harmony.

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